


The World, Yourself And Me

by Lady_R



Category: Dark Souls (Video Games)
Genre: Choking, Hair Braiding, Hurt/Comfort, Nightmares, solaire is sweet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-23
Updated: 2019-04-23
Packaged: 2020-01-25 15:45:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18577558
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lady_R/pseuds/Lady_R
Summary: Wearing a set of arms on your chest plate can be stylish, but when those arms come to life and their hands wrap around your throat, it no longer feel so.Luckily for Lautrec of Carim, it's all but a nightmare. But the knight's awake life is no sweeter, for the remorse of what he has done still haunts him, and he has no one to open up to about his fears. Or so he feels.For someone has heard his cries, and is willing to help however they can.





	The World, Yourself And Me

**Author's Note:**

> Starring Michael B. Jordan (Lautrec of Carim) and Nevo Zisin (Solaire of Astora).
> 
> I'm not black. I researched how to unbraid dreadlocks, but I will change the story at any moment if notified of any mistake.

> “ _Tell me who's gon' save me from myself_
> 
> _When this life is all I know_
> 
> _Tell me who's gon' save me from this hell_
> 
> _Without you, I'm all alone_ ”

( **The Weeknd ft. Kendrick Lamar** , _**[Pray For Me](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XR7Ev14vUh8)**_ )

 

If he was dreaming he doesn’t remember about what, and he doesn’t care anymore.

Solaire’s first instinct is to grab his sword with the right hand and raise the shield, hiding behind it. He stays in silence, eavesdropping, but no second scream follows the first. The knight looks back at the grassy hill, where a crowd of Undead in warrior garments pace by the slope back and forth. No, no, it was close. The Bonfire crackles par for the course, and the sparks get lost in the cold air of the morning. 

For a moment, Solaire fears for his own sanity. Then he sees two fists of gold trembling in the dry grass, hears the sound of the metal tinkling at every new shudder, and notices a holy helm staring at him.

 _’Tis all clear now_ : but not as simple as he’d want it to be. Solaire removes his blonde curls off his face and kneels by his side, placing his sword next to his own thigh. 

-Are you alright, Lautrec? You screamed.-

-The answer is _no_ , and there’s no need for the disgraced knight to speak so that Solaire can understand. A drop of sweat the size of the gem of a ring cracks on his kneecaps; his hands are clenched in tight and shuddering fists. He sleeps with his helm on: questionable when it comes to comfort, but not something the Warrior of Sunlight would speculate on. 

-The hands.- Lautrec pants. -The arms.- 

-What?-

Lautrec points at his own chest. _The arms of the Goddess Fina, the Favor of the Lady_. The gold sculpted hands lay motionless on the quivering shoulders, but the knight of Carim eyes them as if they were holding two daggers. 

-They clung to my throat and held it.- Lautrec leans on the rock with his shoulders. -I was suffocating. They wanted to choke me.- 

Solaire crawls forward, holding onto the grass with shaky hands. 

-They’re gold.- he tries. -They don’t move. You were dreaming, Lautrec. You’re alright.- 

-Get this thing off me!- Lautrec grabs his own cuirasse and shakes the gold as if it was the spires of a snake. -Get this off me! Don’t just stare!-

The clippings are on the shoulders and hips. In any other circumstance, Solaire would be ashamed of himself, for putting his hands on someone he barely knows. 

_An assassin and a sinner, forget it not. Basilisks too cry, before cursing one. Or so is said, for all the Eyes of Death are a bit humid, and death itself is never devoid of crying._

Lautrec himself rips his hands off his hips the moment the gold chest plate tinkles against the stones. The leggings slam against it the moment he’s done unbuckling it; he throws his gauntlets behind his back, and one rolls to the ravine and vanishes into it. The helm too falls off, but this time Lautrec is looking at the precipice, and his grey chemise is lifted and lowered at the frantic rhythm of his panting. Muscular knees, as dark brown as his face, stick out from two big holes on the fabric greave. 

-Man, so bloody cold.- 

Solaire steps forward. -I may not be skilled in many things, but calling your armor “this thing” doesn’t seem like a proper thing to say.- 

The other’s bloodshot eyes escape his. -I don’t want it anymore. Melt it, for what I care. Throw it into the sewers. I’ve had it with these arms stuck to my shoulders.- 

Lautrec chatters his teeth, and his fingers tremble in mid-air. Yet he doesn’t hug himself, as one does when they’re cold. The armor he has thrown off himself glistens in the grass, motionless. Another pair of arms, the ones carved into the gold, embrace it as if to console it and remind it of its purpose. _Another Knight will find you, one day, and they’ll honor you instead of going about getting themselves locked up in old Parishes and murdering defenseless Firekeepers_. Lautrec wipes his face with his sleeve.

-You’re shaking. Come closer to the fire.- 

Lautrec stares at him, his adamantine teeth clanking. 

-Do you hate me?- 

Solaire staggers back, holding his fist around the handle of the shield. Hatred is ugly as a mere thought: even if someone, by all accounts, deserves at least a bit. _He murdered an innocent_ , Solaire repeats to himself. Anastacia always smiles from behind her cage, and displays reverence when she sees him pass by. Solaire asks himself if she also has heard the scream of terror of her assassin. If Lautrec himself appears in her dreams, a bloodied shotel in his hand and a faceless fire in the holes of the helm. If the sudden presence of a Bandit’s Knife at the girl’s belt, since a few days, represents a simple coincidence. 

It’s said that Quella, God of Dreams, distributes nightmares to sinners following the advice of Velka herself. He outdid himself with Lautrec’s, he must give him that. 

But it’s in human nature to commit a sin, and a God shouldn’t punish one that serves a Goddess his equal. 

Solaire stares at his own rosy hands, spotted with goosebumps, and shakes his head faintly. 

-Pretty.- Lautrec clenches his eyes shut: they glisten more when he reopens them. -They all hate me here. They don’t talk to me, but I can see it. And they’ll have me as long as I live. They know what I did. My armor is punishing me alongside them.- 

Solaire gulps. Lautrec is no malicious man, and isn’t playing around with words. He must be an annal-worthy actor, if those eyes and those cheeks are but a trick. But Solaire isn’t Anastacia: he has a solid cuirasse, a tongue to scream with, and enough muscles to fend for himself, even when disarmed. 

 _And yet, the Firekeeper isn’t any less strong than me, and even more so than this man_. 

-Let us go talk atop the roof, shall we? We’ll be in peace, and we’ll enjoy the sun better.- 

-You always bring up the sun.- Lautrec tosses a dreadlock away from his face. -But it can be. The sun can’t lay hands on me. It may as well cook me up.- 

To be fair, that man’s cynicism is enough to boil Solaire’s skin. This is assassins for you, and no need to expect anything else. He holds his wrists tightly and leads him to the lift. Lautrec keeps his head low, like a condemned man, and lets himself be lead with a whine, hands as far away from possible from his own throat and chest. 

 

-I did not even know her.- Lautrec strikes the roof with his clenched fists. -It was the lady who avenged her who told me her name. She did nothing to me. Even if she did know how to weld a weapon, she was not holding one back then. And yet, I cut her throat. One blow. And all for what?- 

He stares at his hands in disgust, as if they were covered in scabs. 

-To bring my lady a little token.- 

He bends his knees, curling up in fetal position, and hides his hands between his thighs and calves. _He doesn’t want to see them: they’re the weapon of the crime_. Lautrec puckers his lips. 

-What lady leaves her knights to die?-

 _I do not know_ : but words don’t come out. The truth is that Solaire doesn’t even want to think about the possibility of abandonment. The sun may be a great father, but there’s fathers who abandon their children without looking back. But there’s also fathers like Sir Siegmeyer, whose daughter has wept for all day in the arms of His Excellence Griggs and Laurentius. A kind man, a blight lost to an eternal eclipse. To Lady Sieglinde, Solaire had whispered soothing words and heated up a herbal tea. He still feels as if she’s there, right in front of him: except Lady Sieglinde had her father’s big eyes, and not the thin and averted ones of the knight in front of her. 

Fina may not be a good mother after all. 

Lautrec removes his hands from under his knees. -I am filthy.- he grumbles. 

-There’s worse sins.- 

Lautrec laughs, but it’s a bitter laugh. -I was talking about my body. Look at this. Those accursed sewers have gotten stuck all over me.-

The sides of his skull are shaved bald, and the hair in between are braided upon one another in little dreads the size of a finger, piled atop his forehead. Raven, devoid of reflection, and not without a reason: none of them has washed himself properly since they have ended up in that land of no escape. 

The previous day, Solaire had tried to wash himself in the waters of New Londo, transparent enough to see the bed of the lake at entire arms of distance. Maybe too transparent, though, for he had been able to sink into that _corpse_ -filled water to his calves before retreating, his heart beating under the chainmail. He intends not to advise it to Lautrec, but at the same time he’s just as tired of being dirty. Lautrec does have nice hair, despite it all, and neatly braided. 

-I can undo them.- 

Lautrec stares at him sideways. -Do you know how to do it?- 

-I had friends who wore those. We would travel together. Unless you don't prefer to do it yourself.- 

-I don't feel very confident in my skill, lately.- 

Lautrec raises his arms and places them in his lap. -I have all you need in my pouch. They allowed me to keep _almost_ all my things.- 

 _Shotels_ : a condemned one cannot weld an arm, and Lautrec’s were refined and of easy usage. He had cut off the Gaping Dragon’s tail in one swift blow – Solaire has chills at the thought of poor Anastacia reduced at the liking of a beast from the sewers. He mustn’t forget _who_ is in front of him. But he so wishes to. Lautrec is choking, and when someone is choking it doesn't matter if and who they have killed: you must free their throat regardless. 

-You can fix my hair, if so pleases you.- Lautrec rummages about with his side and opens the pouch dangling from it. A wooden comb, as thin as two fingers, with a thin iron tip, and a bottle of almond oil with an ivory cap. Lautrec hands them to him without averting his gaze, as if he was afraid he’d break them. As soon as their hands are separated, he turns around and gives him the back of his head. 

He doesn’t tell him to start: Solaire hesitates as he grabs the first loc. Lautrec breaths from his mouth, as if he was asleep, motionless back of marble.

He’s also falling apart, the Warrior of Sunlight thinks. He oils and damps each loc until it drips, massaging each with his palms to heat up the hair inside them. Lautrec keeps his hands curled up in his lap, stroking the back of his right hand with his left thumb. 

-Are you still cold?-

-I’m fine.- 

Solaire looks behind his back, towards the spot where the sun spreads in the sky lighting up the green land. It’s as beautiful as life itself: despite it all, Anastacia made it. Someone took care of her. He wonders if the sun can reach her isolated cellar as well. _It must be so_ , he thinks, placing the tip of the comb in between the interlocked hair of the other. _The sun forgets about no one. Maybe he has even reserved a special ray for this poor one_. In the end, he too needed a light to guide him, and carried it with himself covering his whole body with it. Lautrec’s armor, like the deadly embrace that ruined his night, was gold to the smallest joint. Atop the Parish, even while dodging a tail here and an axe there, it was impossible not to notice its blaze. 

-What of your armor set?-

-I said I don’t want it.- Lautrec mumbles. -Throw it away. Tear it to bits. Use it as a urinal. I don’t ever want to see it again. I don’t want to be _that_ ever again.- 

-It was a good set.- Solaire strokes the back of Lautrec’s head, where a drip of oil dangles dangerously close to the neck of his shirt. -It was probably worth a lot. Finding it will do good to some.- 

Lautrec cricks his teeth, giving a fake smile. 

-Should I confess you a secret?-

-My mouth is sewed.- 

He places his index on his own mouth, like a child. Lautrec looks at the sky, following the flight of the birds. He doesn’t even turn around to speak to him. 

-One can barely see, with that helm on.- 

Solaire emits a “oh” that doesn’t mean anything, letting go of the braid he was working on. A lot of great warriors are blind: Hawkeye Gough himself had lost his sight when he had knocked the mighty Kalameet off the sky. Solaire is about to tell him, but he realizes it makes no sense the moment he sees the hands of the warrior of Carim shake in his lap. 

The Hawkeye would have probably shot nothing with such wrists. 

-Only a complete imbecile wears a helm that doesn’t allow them to see, isn’t it?- 

Lautrec’s voice trembles: it’s as if it’s someone else at all is speaking, as if a Darkwraith had sneaked into the brain of the worn-out warrior. He has goosebumps, clenched teeth. He’s _stuck_. 

Solaire leans forward and wraps his arms around Lautrec’s shoulders. 

-No!- 

Solaire staggers back, stares at his right, to his left, arms wide in front of the disgraced knight. A swarm of crows gets lost in the turquoise sky, a whirl of wind strokes the far-off trees of Darkroot Basin. And there’s the two o them, and the Sun stroking their tired faces – and Lautrec’s eyes, black and wide like those of a child. 

-What is it?- 

-No. Not this way, please.- Lautrec raises his fists in front of himself. -Don’t embrace me like my armor.- 

Solaire moves back. Should have imagined: but not everybody can console properly, and remorse is a persistent parasite. He stares at Lautrec again, and the sweat glistening on his tense cheeks. 

-What would you prefer?-

-I want to look into your eyes.- 

His fingers cling onto the grass, as if he was afraid that he, too, would retreat at his sight. 

-I never trusted anyone. If you are willing to help me, I want to be sure I deserve it.- 

-I guarantee you absolute trust.- 

Solaire ducks his head forward, lowering his gaze to the disgraced knight’s glittering eyes. 

-You are a reckless one.- 

He wipes his forehead again, but this time the drips glitter in a different manner. _Not oil_ , Solaire thinks: this man sweats like a sinner in a church, and considering where they are it’s actually rather fitting. Something else drops on his hands. Solaire lets go of the dreadlock he was working on and turns around just in time to see Lautrec dabbing at his eyes with a strand of his blouse. 

-Lautrec…-

-I should have never been born, accursed Gods.- 

Solaire moves back, as if the other’s desperate words could grasp on his neck as well. Lautrec strokes the grass with open palms, watering it with his tears and with the oil dripping from the undone locks. His wide, muscular back contracts itself with every sob, his sculpted arms tremble like reeds. His shaky hands tug at his shirt up to the collar. 

Solaire places the bottle of oil behind himself and places the comb on his bended leg. 

-Come here.- he whispers. -I promise I won’t embrace you.- 

He places his hands into his lap, next to Lautrec’s, and draws circles on their backs with his thumbs. The other’s veins pulsate from under his skin – as if something was slithering within him, pushing to get out. 

It’s tears that show up, and they draw grey circles in Solaire’s white vestment. 

-She was,- Lautrec punches the grass, -is a nice girl, isn’t she? I barely know her, but she stared at me nicely enough. She made a sketch of me. She does a lot of them. She just had the disgrace of being a Firekeeper instead of anything else. Just like yours truly had the bloody luck of serving that Goddess in particular.- 

He grabs the green strands and rips a bunch off, throwing them away like petals at the passing of a procession. 

-But she is adorable, I never stopped thinking it. She even accepted my apologies. All you Astorans are adorable. If I even stepped in there, I would explode on the spot.- 

-Breathe, my chum.- 

Nothing else to add. Lautrec holds his hand and breathes slowly, savoring the fresh air of dawn like a sorbet made specifically for him. 

-I am so _tired_.- 

He leans his forehead on his shoulder, without retreating his fingers from his hold. When he does say “go on” and turns the other way, dawn has passed, and the disgraced knight’s sobs fill up the silence while Solaire works on his hair. 

 _He’s weeping for himself_ , the Warrior of Sunlight thinks: but he proceeds without a word, because all Lautrec needs are the tears of Lautrec, and pouring more would overrun his already overfilled chalice. 

The ruined knight’s hair run swiftly and let themselves be worked on. Thick, beautiful coils dangle on his forehead, glistening of sweat and oil. Two times does Solaire raise his oily hand to stroke his shoulders, and two times does he have to remind himself _no_ – Lautrec doesn’t want it, and those who suffer need a tower in which they can hide for a bit. Strands of stray hair form a black bundle next to them, as soft as the grass surrounding. Solaire doesn’t dare to throw them away.

-Is it better?-

-I still feel them. They’re cold.-

 _I’m in front of a hostage, just released from the ropes_. Solaire lets go of the las mass of strands, joining the others on the sides of his head. 

-Do they still hurt? The hands, I mean.- 

Lautrec mumbles a “nnh”, stroking his forehead where two thick drops of oil slip down. -They take away my voice, they choke me. It’s terrifying.- He shakes his head, dripping oil on his own blouse. -I know what you’re thinking, I’m a lousy knight.- 

 _Even if you were, my friend, there’d be more valid reasons_. Lautrec slips his pinkie finger between his coils, wrapping them around it. -They’re soft. You are good.- 

-Really, for this little.- 

Lautrec strokes his own curls, from the skull to the tip. He bends his head to the side. 

-I still don’t feel like _myself_ , without my locks.- 

-I can braid them again, if you want me to.-

-Yes, yes. I’ll be washing my head now.-

But he doesn’t move, and his fingers hold Solaire’s tighter. He wonders if the Lady’s hard-working hands have ever held his instead of always clinging to his shoulders and chest. _Or his throat_ , he think, gulping. Lautrec has too tense muscles, too wide eyes, to have forgotten. 

-Lautrec, really…-

-Help me.-

A clear command he understands. He attempts a smile as he hears it. -I’m here for you.- 

-I need to talk, to understand. Myself, I mean. I don’t ever want to dream about those hands again.-

-Every knight is afraid of something. Even Sir Artorias probably trembled in fear at the sight of the Abyss.-

Lautrec removes his hands from Solaire’s hold. -But afraid, I am not. They cannot do anything more to me.- 

He rises his gaze, blinking, shedding two last tears. Solaire conjoins his hands, hoping that Lautrec would give him back his own. His fingers shake like leaves: they could use a squeeze. 

-Remorse, is it?- 

Lautrec tackles the word between his beautiful plump lips, gulping. 

-I complain about _my_ nightmares. Pitiful. Just imagine what I have caused to that sweet young woman.- 

-The Firekeeper is noble and gentle. She forgave you, do not forget. And if you want me to, I can give a good word for you to the others. It’s not impossible they’d listen.- 

Lautrec stares at him from a distance, naked under his undone curls.

-Why such gentility for a sinner?-

-A sinner doesn’t leave Summoning Signs.- Solaire squeezes his shoulder, bare muscles under the thin fabric, and moves to his side. -You have acted for a Goddess. There’s those who kill for worse, you know.-

-I whispered a prayer to Nito, after she dropped dead. They say he’s kind, even kinder than you. I hoped I’d do one good thing.- Lautrec wipes his nose with the back of his hand. -I love telling lies to myself. It entertains me, when I have no one to talk about.-

 _And I will have nobody for a long time_ , it’s implied in his worn out tone. Solaire shakes his head. He closes the bottle of almond oil and hands it and the comb back to him, brushing his hand as he takes it. 

-She wants you to be here, for this is your place. We are a community, and she’s not afraid of you. She has her protectors.- 

And who do you have? His shotels have been taken by Anor Londo the moment Lady Cyndi had ordered him to be taken away for his verdict. During the infinite time Lautrec had spent in the infirmary of Anor Londo, passed out, they had probably been melted to the tip. Lady Cyndi is as much a Firekeeper as she is a warrior – with her soft raven hair and her deep brown skin, she looks closer to Lautrec than to Anastacia, but it’s of the second that she considers herself _sister_. She wouldn’t offer kindness to the assassin of one of her own.

 _Yet she made so he was healed, and cared for, and let him rejoin his people in our shelter_. Solaire scratches at his own head questioningly. Some design has decided that Lautrec must live: what his life will be is a mystery that is precluded to him.

But as long as he is, he can at least try and sweeten that incognita life. 

-Maybe Anastacia will never feel love for you, but she’d not want you to be marked for life.-. He leans towards the disgraced knight, attempting a smile. -She knows what it’s like. She has gone through it.-

 _I am impure_ , she had said at the moment of recovery, _my tongue never intended for restoration_. Not even mild handmaidens are completely blameless – and only a sinner can understand another sinner. Yet he speaks to Lautrec as sweetly as he can.

-Your Lady may have forgotten you, but we have not. You can open up on your nightmares whenever you please. Soon, the others too will see who you truly are. And when it’s all over, if you want, I can take you to Astora with me.- 

Lautrec stares at his own hands, as if he feared for them to forsake him too. He breathes from his wide nose, clenches his coarse lips. He then raises his face to the sky – to the sun – joining his hands like in a prayer.

-Then,- he whispers, ecstatic face and glittering eyes, -my Lady was wrong.- 

-Enjoy yourself the sun, Lautrec. He’ll never lay a hand on you.- 

Solaire faintly squeezes his wrist. A wave of fresh wind strokes his forehead and nose.

-Cry as long as you want to. We’ll all help you start over. Enjoy the sun, my friend.-

And its rays fill up the tears on Lautrec’s pretty face, painting them with gold.

**Author's Note:**

> Is this romantic, or platonic friendship?
> 
> I leave it to you.


End file.
